![The Best Albums of 2020](https://www.thenation.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/GettyImages-1095673226.jpg)
The Best Albums of 2020 The Best Albums of 2020
Our music critic’s 11 favorite pieces of music from this year.
Dec 18, 2020 / Books & the Arts / David Hajdu
![The Two Maria Schneiders](https://www.thenation.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/PhotoCredit_Briene_Lermitte_Schneider-2020-17.jpg)
The Two Maria Schneiders The Two Maria Schneiders
The auteurist and activist impulses of her expansive jazz comes together on Data Lords.
Aug 17, 2020 / David Hajdu
![This Is the Sound of Gentrification](https://www.thenation.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Ted-Hearne-Saul-Williams-Isaiah-Robinson-and-Steven-Bradshaw-.jpg)
This Is the Sound of Gentrification This Is the Sound of Gentrification
Ted Hearne and Saul Williams’s Place captures the volatile energies of a changing city beset by the forces of late capitalism.
Jun 5, 2020 / David Hajdu
![The Magic of Bill Withers](https://www.thenation.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/GettyImages-85000255.jpg)
The Magic of Bill Withers The Magic of Bill Withers
A remembrance of the raw simplicity and urgent power of Withers’s soulful pop.
Apr 9, 2020 / David Hajdu
![Expect the Unexpected: On the Music of Hildur Guðnadóttir](https://www.thenation.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Hildur-Guðnadóttir-gt.jpg)
Expect the Unexpected: On the Music of Hildur Guðnadóttir Expect the Unexpected: On the Music of Hildur Guðnadóttir
Her scores for HBO’s Chernobyl and Todd Phillips’s Joker bring soundtracks into the realm of high art.
Feb 5, 2020 / David Hajdu
![10 of 2019’s Best Albums](https://www.thenation.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/FKA-TWIGS-Photo-by-Matthew-Stone-.jpg)
10 of 2019’s Best Albums 10 of 2019’s Best Albums
The hybrid work of Julia Wolfe’s oratorio Fire in My Mouth, FKA twigs’s Magdalene, and Kris Davis’s Diatom Ribbons all showcase the experimental spirit of this year’s most exc...
Dec 30, 2019 / David Hajdu
![Do Auxuman’s AI Singers Herald the Shape of Music to Come?](https://www.thenation.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/yonaonestill1.jpg)
Do Auxuman’s AI Singers Herald the Shape of Music to Come? Do Auxuman’s AI Singers Herald the Shape of Music to Come?
A new company started by British Iranian interdisciplinary artist Ash Koosha is making the musicians of the future using artificial intelligence technology.
Dec 12, 2019 / David Hajdu
![Who Gets to Tell the Story of a Lost Music Culture?](https://www.thenation.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MKV0369.tif-CD1-3-1.jpg)
Who Gets to Tell the Story of a Lost Music Culture? Who Gets to Tell the Story of a Lost Music Culture?
A new archival collection of little-heard music from the Balkans prompts questions of how and why we recover sounds from history.
Nov 15, 2019 / David Hajdu
![Chrissie Hynde Sets a New Standard](https://www.thenation.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2019-09-14T174200Z_931237162_MT1WENN37020385_RTRMADP_3_WENN-20190916-LAST-NIGHT-OF-THE-PROMS-HYDE-PARK.jpg)
Chrissie Hynde Sets a New Standard Chrissie Hynde Sets a New Standard
Valve Bone Woe uses Tin Pan Alley classics, musical theater numbers, jazz tunes, and more to show the Pretenders singer as the top of her game
Oct 11, 2019 / David Hajdu
![A Haitian Music Oral History That Bends Space and Time](https://www.thenation.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/2018-12-29-17-56-08-23.jpg)
A Haitian Music Oral History That Bends Space and Time A Haitian Music Oral History That Bends Space and Time
Nathalie Joachim’s debut album, Fanm d’Ayiti, bridges vast expanses, bringing together the sounds of Haitian folk music, Western classical music, electronic, and hints of pop.
Sep 18, 2019 / David Hajdu